Opinions on Everything

“Whatever Ray is making, it’s not enough.” (3 Million)

“That three was so ridic, a fade away with 5 seconds left and the season on the line? Swish City.” – The Shee

Ray Allen jumped up my list of NBA players with this clutch shot last night. Lebron too. Fans won’t forget Ray’s shot but they will forget that when the Heat were down 5, Lebron got a good look at a 3 and completely missed the rim, the rebound bounced around and Mike Miller got the ball right back to Lebron and he rose up and knocked one down. After the aforementioned point of the game I made a comment to Jeff that Lebron seemed a bit frazzled and I’d want Ray to take the shot if my team needed it. Obviously Chris Bosh thought the same thing.

Last night’s game was one of the best NBA games I’ve witnessed in a long time. Lebron guarding Parker and him stepping back from 3 land and nailing it to put his team up was heroic. Later Parker owned Chalmers in the lane which proved Lebron is the only guy on the floor who can stand a chance covering Parker. Bosh played the OT of his life with a great 3 point play to start it and the risky block on Green to seal it. Was Manu fouled on the play where San Antonio should have called a timeout with 11 seconds left? Probably but whistles are silent in situations like that and there’s nothing wrong with that. I was thoroughly entertained and the sense of a season ending with a loss was evident in the 4th quarter. The tension and pressure were high and you could feel it exuding from Lebron (the head band got removed by his powering up like in DragonBall). I let out a yelp when Ray swished that 3 because I couldn’t contain my excitement. It was truly one for the ages.

Part one of a few of my favorite items can be found here. This will continue the list.

Favorite Pornstar – 90′s Jenna Jameson

I had a hard time making this entry. I don’t think all of these pictures are from the 90′s but they are close enough to that time period to give the idea of what the best pornstar of all time looked like. I feel bad for all the young kids of today who get to see a washed up, plastic, pill popping, rail thin Jenna because she wasn’t always like that. Before ClubJenna and when she was with Vivid, Jenna Jameson was/is the best thing that ever happened to porn. She even had heartbreaker tattooed on her ass so all the guys knew what they were dealing with. It isn’t a contest really. She had the looks, the body, and then even the brains to revolutionize the industry. Jenna in her prime was a work of art rivaling the Sistine Chapel.

Favorite Professional Sports League – NFL

Far and away the best professional sport. 16 game season, playing once a week, every game is meaningful, hard hitting, talent shines, and nothing’s for certain. The NFL is the polar opposite of baseball and why I love one and can’t stand the other. Even though I’ve never played football I get such a kick out of what these players are able to do and how dedicated they are to their sport because without complete focus, they have no chance. I grew up playing basketball and even though that’s my favorite sport to play, the NBA is a so-so run league. The NFL has hit the nail on the head and with the rise of Fantasy Football (we actually used to play back in the 90′s when Pishy would score by hand), I’m completely hooked. Throw in some action on the games, a beer, a lazy Sunday and I’m in paradise.

Favorite Actor – Kevin Spacey

I enjoy Kevin Spacey’s acting. He’s cool, calm, and collected one minute and then at the drop of a hat he can turn ballistic. He gets in tune with the character he’s portraying and then makes you believe he’s the character. It’s acting 101 but he does it better than most. Seven and the Usual Suspects stand out as ultimate villains. American Beauty was obviously one of his main hits and I particularly enjoyed the Big Kahuna which I’m sure no one has seen. I know he did House of Cards as well which I’m sure was great. I could have picked Pitt, DeNiro, Nicholson, Hanks, or Damon for this category but I like Spacey’s style more.

Favorite Album – Dark Side of the Moon

The Dark Side of the Moon’s themes include conflict, greed, the passage of time, and mental illness, the latter partly inspired by Barrett’s deteriorating mental state. For me this is the album I listen to when I’m fucked up. Not so much anymore but Evan can attest to my late night escapades stumbling in at 2am and blaring DSoTM. I’d usually be asleep by Time but when I was listening it was like magic. At 43 minutes if I remember correctly, it’s the perfect length of not being too long or too short. The tracks on it are all top notch and I really can’t think of any other album that is close to this one. I’m not alone either as it remained in the charts for 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988. With an estimated 50 million copies sold, it is Pink Floyd’s most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums worldwide.

Favorite Shorts – Dockers

The shorts are 20 dollars. Most shorts are just shorts but I can’t find anything wrong with the Docker’s shorts. They are priced right, pockets are fine, length is a tad short but not noticeable. They last a long time and you can buy 10 different colors if you wish. I have no reason to try another pair

Curb Your Enthusiasm – Funkhouser’s Joke

Wheel of Fortune – Pill Pushers

Family Feud – A Part of the Body That Grows As You Get Older

Arrested Development – Gob and His Expensive Suits

Family Guy – Red Bull

Here’s a post that will describe a few of what I consider the best of the best. What you’ll find in this post are my favorite books, movies, games, music and anything else I can think of to round out a full post. I may have to use a couple parts but I have high hopes for this type of post and the commentary it can potentially generate.

Favorite Movie – Schindler’s List

It made me cry. I thought about this topic for a while and no other movie I can think of made me cry like this one. Any movie that is able to deliver that kind of emotion has to be at the top of the list. Liam Neeson was phenomenal and even though it’s been years since I’ve watched it, that feeling at the end of the movie has never left me. I’ve seen many good movies too and it’s not only the crying factor, this was an all around wonderful movie. I think I may have shed a tear during 7 pounds as well for what it’s worth.

Honorable Mention – Shawshank Redemption, Platoon, Forrest Gump, Goodfellas

Favorite Board Game – Clue

It bothers me that more people don’t like Clue. People think it’s a complicated game and dismiss it. What they don’t realize is that they are missing out on a game that involves trickery, paying attention, and deducing from partial information. It’s a smart person’s game and if you don’t like it… Aside from the games when Bud, Bill, Chris, and myself used to play when we were little, I haven’t found a group of people who actually enjoy Clue. We are trying to get a Risk game together and I’m equally trying to find some Clue participants. Get a clue.

Honorable Mention – Stratego, Scattergories, Chess

Favorite Band – Led Zeppelin

This was pretty easy for me. I was listening to Rock and Roll the other day and every song I listened to after it was dwarfed in comparison. Led Zeppelin makes other music worse. The synergy created from all 4 members make this band legendary. I don’t think anyone has touched the benchmark set by them in 40 years. Here was a post I did a while back about my favorite Zeppelin songs. If I’m ready to rock out, I go with Zeppelin.

Honorable Mention - Beatles. Everyone else is on a different tier.

Favorite TV Show – The Wire

I thought about this for a little while and the answer is the Wire because it ended at the right time. Aside from docks season which was a little whack, every single episode and season delivered. I started drinking Jameson as my drink of choice after mimicking McNulty. Breaking Bad was a close second but I think Bud summed it up perfectly that season 4 didn’t leave a lot unanswered. The 1st half of the 5th season, although good, didn’t need to be. I’ll obviously watch the 2nd half but I think it should have stopped. Knowing when to end a show is important. Bad things happened with Sopranos, Dexter, True Blood… I think Game of Thrones has mighty potential though. I think I watched the Wire in a few weeks time playing episode after episode until my eyes closed. There hasn’t been a better TV show created. I do think it’s a bit unfair though to compare this with a 22 minute episode on a national network.

Honorable Mention – GoT, Breaking Bad, Seinfeld

Favorite Book – Atlas Shrugged

This is a weird pick because I skimmed through 75 pages of John Galt’s speech (I’m sure this could be people’s favorite part) which was entirely overwhelming and the ending action scene seemed incredibly dumb, but for 3 months of reading this book I would be engrossed in the life of Dagney, Reardon, John Galt, and Francisco. I even took notes during this book and I was reading it for fun! The story shed light on different political and life views of characters which was mind opening. I probably missed many relevant parts of this story and forget them to this date but if I ever get the chance, I wouldn’t hesitate to re-read this book. This also made me read the Fountainhead which was also incredibly good.

Honorable Mention – Napoleon Hill The Law of Success & Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

There were quite a few blog worthy topics for me this weekend. The US open was near Philly, I played a round of golf on Saturday, a Fresh Foods experience, and even a rousing game of horse all come to mind. I’ll use bullets instead of paragraph form because I don’t have anything to intertwine all of these random happenings.

• I took it easy on Friday night because Bud and I planned an 11:28 golf round at Turtle Creek. I woke early on Saturday, went for a run across the Ben Franklin bridge, posted an entry on this site, and then met Bud at the course. We played with an elderly couple, Jack and Ruth, who were actually very good for their age. I managed to shoot 89 while putting erratically all day. Probably my best driving round of the year though. Bud had some unbelievable tee-shots as well.
• We then headed to the courts to play some Bball with Sam and Gourlay. Gourlay, the captain, chose Sam over me which proves his ability as a manager. Only two notes on the games were my block that was rejected right back in Sam’s grill and Jeff raping Gourlay on a drive to the basket. He liked it.
• Sunday began with a trip to Fresh Foods where we picked up a Tiramisu for our dad on Father’s day. I inquisitively asked why there was hardly a counter space to put items on at the check out line and parted by telling the customers that “Fresh Foods sucked”. It really didn’t but it seemed outrageously priced.
• The game of horse amongst the Stortz boys was historic. To start things off I hit a 27 foot 3 point shot which Sam missed. After exclaiming that my last shot was too easy I banked a 35 ft shot from the welcome mat by the deck that Sam missed again. Once Sam was eliminated it was down to Jeff and I. Saying one more time that my last shot was too easy, I attempted a 70 ft sidewalk shot that was virtually perfect in every way and dropped through the basket to make me the winner. It was a thing of beauty and Jeff said that he couldn’t even look at me right now.
  
  
  

  Tom Stortz

     

The song I Sold My Bed, But Not My Stereo (worth a listen) by Capital Cities has a line in it that says “have you heard my Pink Floyd cover?” To most people this line wouldn’t stand out but I sort of pondered it a bit and decided that many people growing up may have no idea of who Pink Floyd even is. It’s completely natural for a 15 year old to be listening to Capital Cities, hear this line, and have never heard of the band Pink Floyd. This would mean that a 15 year old born in 1998! would have to delve way back in classic rock to stumble across Pink Floyd. This got me thinking that I’m getting old.

In my mind it’s almost impossible for me to understand that some people may not know Pink Floyd even exists. To create an analogous situation, a baby boomer would be be scratching their head how someone of my generation would never have heard of the Rat Pack. It makes me understand how when you age, you are constantly being replaced by a younger generation. The great thing is that you don’t even know it’s happening, it just does. I say it’s great because it defines a meaningful concept of change. The only thing constant is change.

What makes this post worthwhile is that Pink Floyd isn’t just another band. Once again I’m going to be an old person again exclaiming how things were so much better back then (I wasn’t even alive while Pink Floyd was at their height for what it’s worth), but it’s the truth. Missing out on Pink Floyd is like never hearing of the Yankees. The lyrics, the guitar, the messages, and the performance all came together to create one of the best bands ever. As time (a Floyd song about how time can slip by, but many people do not realize it until it is too late) passes, greatness is forgotten by the younger generation. Times change, interests change, bands are forgotten and new ones emerge. All natural aspects of life that you get to witness as you go through life. One of the advantages of getting older.

I think it’s tough for an older generation to see young people and know that they are not going to go through life the same way. As an elder you want to take the young’n and put Pink Floyd on your record player and be like, “Listen Sonny, this band blows the doors off of Justin Bieber.” Problem is that you can’t force this type of thinking on young minds because it debilitates thought. They have to want to listen to Pink Floyd and as time passes, Pink continues to get pushed further and further into history. It’s a scary thought comparing Pink Floyd to One Direction. Nevertheless, that is the case and embracing this is important. Nobody like a crotchety old fart.

Check out Capital Cities cover of Breathe which I have to assume is the Pink Floyd cover mentioned in the song that inspired this post.

I should have a picture of my actual encounter with boob girl but this story will have to do to help me explain. As I was driving down 3rd I turned my head to the right and saw a girl with exposed breasts right outside Starbucks. She had pasties on her boobs and they weren’t exactly 10 out of 10′s so it wasn’t a pretty sight. I sort of did a double take and wondered if there was some parade going on but there wasn’t. She then looked directly at me and I had no idea what an appropriate reaction was. It didn’t seem right to me to stare and I got the feeling that she’d flip me off if I kept looking at her shirtless. Thankfully the light turned green and I sped off without a second thought. A day later I told Jeff about it and he informed me boob girl was protesting something or another and yadda yadda no one cares.

Why is it ok for guys to go shirtless and girls are not allowed? The same reason that as a society we hide body parts that can come in different sizes. We hide dongs so people don’t get embarrassed by size which makes perfect sense to me. Everyone knows girls make fun of penis sizes because they can. You’d think this would apply to boobs as well. If a girl is walking around with perfect 10′s, I’m sure society would marvel at her and tell her to keep on keeping on. She keeps her top on to protect the 95% of the rest of world from humiliation. I know the argument would be that only the people who want to can, but this still unleashes unwanted tits to the public’s view because ugly boobs can still want to come out to dance. Just because guys can take there shirt off doesn’t mean they do. Do you see 400lb bro’s flaunting their tits in public?

Philly boob girl has a screw loose. Breasts are magical and by exposing them all the time their allure diminishes. I don’t take my dick out because I want to feel comfortable. If everyone started whipping their dicks out you’d have an increased number of rapes, bizarre hard on sightings, people getting hit by accident, and STD’s would be much more prevalent. We cover our goods because it’s a smarter way of doing. Boobs are covered and it has hardly been a hindrance for hundreds of years, don’t protest something that isn’t a problem. There are places for her called nudist colonies where she’s more than welcome. Don’t damage our society with unwanted breasts.

… when indecision and stupidity cross paths. Today I nearly killed a homeless man when he decided that crossing the street on his red light was a good idea. I’m ready to drive through the intersection on my green light when this wild man decides that he is going to make a mad dash for the other side. I see what he’s up to and begin braking to allow him to cross when all of a sudden he decides to let me pass through by waving his hand. This is a two lane area and he’s standing in the one lane so I’m violently waving my hand for him to get on the other side. He finally decides to cross but not after I’d made moves forward on 3 separate occasions while he’s trying to figure out what to do. So a quick analysis can break down what happened and why it happened.

Not following the rules of the road. Red means stop, green means go. This applies to walkers as well. The rules are created for safety and for everyone to have a standard to abide by.

Indecisiveness. If he started walking and kept walking, it would have made the problem go away as quick as possible. By hesitating he creates confusion in both himself and now everyone else around him.

Drugs are bad MMMMKay. Hard to say if this maniac was on drugs but usually drugs & alcohol lead to bad decisions. Trust me, I know.

This one quality is what sets apart the weak from the strong, the poor from the rich, and the masses from the stars who shine. It’s continuing to do something when you don’t want to do it anymore. It’s constantly working towards a goal until that goal is achieved. It’s not quitting when you know there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s a never say die attitude and the understanding that Rome wasn’t built in a day and hard work is what pays off in the end. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the Thomas Jefferson quote, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” People who believe in God attribute luck to God. I personally feel this attitude is for the moronic. Things get accomplished by an unwavering tunnel vision towards completing something. Luck is hard work paying you back.

I didn’t have any real motivation to write this post aside from Sam’s comment on one of my posts that read “That’s my #1 answer when people say “why do you have a blog” (in a very condescending tone).” The people who ask that question have no determination and are the spineless jellyfish of the world. They see no value in keeping a blog and will scoff at others for no other reason other than to put you down. I’ve seen many personal blogs come and go and I can’t think of many people who would maintain a blog for 4+ years and not receive a single cent for their contribution. It’s not about the money for me. It’s putting my ideas onto a platform that will be around in my life for the rest of my life. I’ll purchase rnningfool.com for the next 200 years so my thoughts will never be lost. Money means nothing when compared to time and what you do with that time. The smartest people are the ones who realize that time > money. When you spend your time achieving your goals, you can’t go wrong. One of this blog’s goals is to gain an audience and hopefully a place where people can come together and kick around ideas. I know participation is minimal (there were 5 posts in a row with a comment!) but I’ll keep plugging away until it happens.

There have been quite a few new releases of highly anticipated albums lately such as 30 Seconds to Mars, Vampire Weekend, The National, Daft Punk, Portugal The Man, and Capital Cities but I’ve found the Limousines album Hush the one I’ve been listening to the most. I imagine most people probably have never even heard of the Limousines but their last album produced hits like “Internet Killed the Video Star” and “Very Busy People“. Without getting into too much background info, their record label didn’t treat them fairly and they looked towards Kickstarter to help them raise money for this album. Initially planning to raise $30,000, fans donated $76,000 before the 30 day close. This huge success for the Limousines leaves them contract- and label-free for their Hush Album.

I went back and listened to their first album (which I never had all the way through) and Hush is much more refined. The songs contain more meaning lyrically and have the ability to draw you in. The album kicks off with 3 songs that won’t get the attention that they deserve. AltNation has already started playing Love is a Dog From Hell but Stranger is the best song on the album. The line “I want to love you in real life” sticks. The next track that I look forward to is Wrecking Ball. It’s an upbeat song that gets you grooving. Every song has lives off it’s own merit though and that is something you don’t find often. The last album that I would listen to every single song all the way through and not get annoyed with certain ones was A Silent Film Sand & Snow , which I also believe was underrated. The album Hush is still relatively unknown when I see the views on Spotify on Youtube but I wouldn’t be surprised if this album starts getting some more attention once people get the chance to hear it more often. Give these songs below a listen and see if this band is for you.

Limousines – The Stranger

Limousines – Wrecking Ball